Looking Back

So I’m sitting here at year’s end, looking at the blank computer screen in front of me and wishing it would magically fill with well-chosen words, when this old guy walks in behind me. At least, I THINK an old guy walked in behind me. Sometimes when I’m writing this column late at night, the [...]

OK, so maybe I was a little edgy. After all, I was only 19, it was my first Christmas away from home, and I was feeling a little . . . you know . . . empty. Besides, I think the weather in San Diego was starting to get to me. I mean, how much [...]

My big brother Bud used to say that sheep are the dumbest creatures on earth. Whenever I watch “America’s Funniest Home Videos” I’m inclined to think otherwise. But Bud was absolutely committed to the notion. “When was the last time you went to the circus and saw a trained sheep act?” he would ask by [...]

Back in the early days of my career – which were also the early days of e-mail – I was corresponding with a source on a breaking news story. OK, that sounds much grander than it actually was. I was a young newspaper reporter, and someone with an axe to grind was trying to get [...]

“Dad, what does that mean?” My then-7-year-old son Jonathan and I were driving and listening to the radio, and I wasn’t exactly paying attention to either — or to Jon, for that matter. It was 1998, and my mind was swimming with concerns of that particular holiday season: shopping, bills, holiday schedules, the impeachment of [...]